XS Official PSU Of The Month: April 2007
It's here ;)
It seems what's on everyone's minds these days, when we are at the brink of a new era of computing, in the form of multi-core processors, and gaming, in the form of DX10 graphic effects and physics engines that encompass entire game worlds, seems to be the question:
"Will my rig handle it"? "It" being the new hardware, be it on a new system or as part of an upgrade, and whenever such a question is asked, there are a plethora of answers coming from all sides declaring opinions in opposite directions. With factors such as possible bottlenecks and overclocks, vmodding, watercooling cloud the user's mind even more as to what shall be needed to make that one rig...that will make it out of crysis, out of Assasin's creed, and new engines and worlds coming well into late 2008, without too many scratches. Others wonder whether the rigs they hope will out-crunch the PS3 with GPGPU technology using the full power of today's unified shader hardware.
XS's Official PSU of the Month for April is "THAT" psu, one that will be futureproof, first and most important, then it will be powerful, seeing as this isn't kansas (2006) anymore. What was considered "enough" for a dual core and a 7900 or an x1900, can NOT be considered enough for DX10 cards and Quad Core processors. Members who come here are looking for hardware with sufficient headroom, this applies to power supplies as well !! Wattage requirements on Directx 10 hardware and Quad core processors no longer scale the same way as previous gen hardware. A new rig in 2007 can easily begin to demand 50% to 100% more power than at stock, especially as peripherals such for raid 0 and other such things pushing the limit of last generation power supplies towards the breaking point.
On the other hand, one who goes out and pays $500 for a 2000W power supply thinking that everything powered with it will never reach that wattage is equally mistaken, seeing as when one finds out that his/her garage is not enough for 3 cars, he/she does not go out and buy a 10,000 sq ft warehouse "just to be sure" as it is conceivable based on their lifestyle and preference that such a measure is unnecessary, which highlights the impracticality of the thinking that ignores the individual needs of the average member. The important thing to remember when upgrading or when thinking of upgrading, and the reason why choosing not only a good power supply, but also the right one, helps in qwelling concerns over which hardware to get, is that the power supply you choose represents the type of pc you want, but also the type of pc you'll want 2-3 years from now. It is an incredible tool over time to narrow down ones choices of hardware as what is regarded as the "limit" of a good power supply represents your budget and your day to day computing needs, moreso than any other piece of hardware, as no application or experiment or project will ever gain in performance when a rig is properly powered and no rig will require a certain type of psu to be compatible with the rest of the hardware, and therefore the benefit is purely intrinsic - where once you put enough thought into buying a psu, its a "set it and forget it" stance which represents your level of satisfaction with your current hardware, and therefore the need for a newer beefier psu represents higher demand of satisfaction than before.
Thus, the one psu that can handle, for those members that wish to be able to run their Quad Core + the one DX10 card that will satisfy their need for framerates or crunching power without needing to go dual GPUs in the present or in the future, is this:
Silverstone Olympia OP650 650W Power Supply
http://www.eastluna.com/eimages/pics/2469o1.jpg
http://www.silverstonetek.com/images...0/op650-v5.jpg
The epitome of the psu that will run a single quad core and a single high end dx10 card - be it an 8300 or an 8850 GX2 - well into the next generation of hardware, the Silverstone Olympia features 54A on the 12V Rails, with high quality internal components and big heavy internal sinks that will not flicker under any load, and only 6Amps shy from the amperage rating on the PCP&C 750W PSU, evidence that this PSU is indeed wolf in sheep's clothing.
To convey how powerful this PSU is, our previous XS PSU of the month the Silverstone ST56ZF which could handle 7900SLI or X1900 Crossfire with a fully OCed Dual Core, without flinching at any amount of Load, only had 38A on the 12V Rail !!
Not to mention, that with the myriad of PSUs that will be released from now till the end of 2007 featuring slap-on pci-e solutions and what not, the OP650 is the first PSU in its wattage range to feature a native 8-pin connector for that hefty, case bending, high end DX10 video card. The OP650 is the hallmark of unbeatable efficiency, stability, and rig upgradeability for those that want a PSU that will not sacrifice their budget towards getting the dx10 card and quad core for which they need the psu in the first place. :cool:
Full Specs:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/produc...p650_spec.html
Review:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/review_details.php?id=100
Where to Buy:
East Luna - http://www.eastluna.com/hardware/details.php?id=2469 - $127
FrozenCPU - http://www.frozencpu.com/products/56...y_-_OP650.html - $130
Newegg - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...MP=OTC-Froogle - $150
Perkam
